Ken Griffey Jr.
The Kid — the backwards cap, the sweetest left-handed swing in baseball, and the Seattle Mariners star who was the face of the 90s game. Ken Griffey Jr. hit towering home runs, made highlight-reel catches, and had his name on the video games kids played and the Wheaties boxes on the breakfast table.
George Kenneth Griffey Jr. — 'Junior,' or 'the Kid' — was the first overall pick in the 1987 MLB draft and made his debut for the Seattle Mariners on April 3, 1989. With his cap worn backwards and a swing that announcers called the sweetest in the game, he became the sport's signature 90s star, all effortless power and gliding catches in center field.
His defining team moment came in 1995, when the 'Refuse to Lose' Mariners staged a run to the playoffs. In the deciding Game 5 of the Division Series, with Griffey on first base, Edgar Martínez hit a double, and Griffey raced all the way around to slide home with the winning run. Two years later, in 1997, he captured the American League MVP award, hitting .304 with 56 home runs and 147 RBI. He was on the Wheaties box and had his own signature Nike sneaker line.
Griffey was everywhere kids looked — including the games they played, with a run of titles bearing his name from 'Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball' (1994) onward through 'Winning Run' (1996) and beyond. A February 2000 trade sent him home to the Cincinnati Reds, where injuries dogged much of the decade that followed, but he finished with 630 career home runs, seventh-most in major-league history.
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